Last weekend, a group of friends and I decided to have lunch at Burgers Etc. I haven’t been here for awhile so I was delighted! This is a local and neighbourhood favourite, well known for their pulled pork sandwich specials and alcoholic ice cream milkshakes. Yummmm! Unfortunately, I am kicking myself in the face for forgetting to take a picture of my own food, but managing to take a picture of all my friend’s plates. So, I regretfully tell you guys that I will not have a picture of my own plate :(.

Burgers Etc has won many restaurant awards in the past. They have certificates lined up against the waiting area to prove it. There was one server working while we were there. Later on, a busser joined her. Both workers were very friendly and attentative.One thing I really liked about Burgers Etc was their open concept kitchen. On the other side of these tables, was the grill area for the burgers. We got to see them cook our food! The open concept kitchen speaks volumes about a restaurant’s practices, because it shows that they don’t have anything bad to hide (well, less compared to regular restaurants I guess).Let’s start with my friend’s BBQ combo platter ($17). You choose two types of BBQ meats, and two sides. My friend got the pulled pork and beef brisket, with potato salad and baked beans. Both the meats were extremely tender, soft, and juicy. Every bite oozed delicious BBQ goodness and smokiness! I also tried his baked beans, which I was surprised because I didn’t expect them to have a sweet taste to them.My friend’s grilled chicken burger with macaroni salad. I got the same thing as her, expect I had fries with my burger. Since I forgot to take a picture of mine, I’ll just include it here. Their grilled chicken was grilled perfectly, and slightly charred. It was juicy, perfectly cooked, and seeping with flavour. The toppings in the burger were also really fresh!My friend’s beef burger! For extra charge, you are able to add additional, fancier toppings such as peppers, cheese, and bacon which is what my friend did. I didn’t try it, but it looked really good and he had no complaints. It also came with an overwhelming amount of jalapeno peppers, which were scattered generously on half his plate. Yum!Another burger! This one was the pulled pork BBQ sandwich, topped with cole slaw. I would imagine this burger was heavenly as well, since their pulled pork is so flavourful and tender.My friend ordered the beef dip BBQ sandwich, which came with mushrooms, onions, mayo. Each burger included a dill pickle. She couldn’t finish hers, and I was curious as to what it tasted like. This burger was SO. GOOD. The beef melted in your mouth, along with mushrooms and melted cheese. It reminded me of a burger commercial, where everything gets slow motioned so viewers can bask in its glory. The beef dip that came of it was really flavourful as well. I believe it was made with beef stock, and it was pretty light. The warm, juicy burger and beef dip are a serious match made in heaven.

All the meats from Burgers ETC were cooked perfectly. They were tender, juicy, and well seasoned- some of the meats practically melt in your mouth! We all left with happy and stuffed tummies. Added with the great service and atmosphere, this is a great place to have a burger. It is definitely not an average burger, they go above and beyond and it is truly heavenly.

I have came here a few times already, but haven’t had the chance to blog about it since I only started my site three months ago! Chez Meme is a cute little locally owned French cafe along Hastings Street. Once in awhile, they will open on weekends, which you can check on their menu board in store but otherwise, they are only open weekday morning & afternoons. It was David’s birthday (happy birthday!), and I suggested that we come here again for brunch, since we always have a good experience.We got there at 11am, where there were still a few seats open. I figured that because it was a rainy day, it wasn’t as busy as I expected it to be, but I’m glad that we made the reservation anyways. After 15 minutes, a line started to form, so now I know what time is the best to go if I want to avoid the line up. As you can tell, the place is pretty small but it is also owned by a husband and wife team. I’ve seen another server help out during busier days, but I’m pretty sure the wife runs the front of the house by herself, as she did during this visit.

Here is one side of the menu, with all their delicious baguettes! They are well known for the baguettes, so it was obvious what my choice was. Being a French cafe, they also have an extensive wine and espresso drink menu which is posted on their wall.After coming here many times, I had my heart set on the nordique baquette! The nordique baguette consisted of smoked salmon, cream cheese, dill, and onion. It was the perfect combination and made my taste buds do a happy dance. Their baguettes were light and chewy, which complimented the heaviness of the cream cheese. Even then, there was a perfect amount of cream cheese to go with the smoked salmon. The dill and onion accentuated the flavours of the salmon and cream cheese, making everything in the baguette flourish. For my choice of sides, I chose their soup because they always have really good soup. Today was the zucchini and basil soup, which tasted really flavourful. It had a puree texture to it. I enjoyed my dish very much, and have no complaints about it.David chose the cordon bleu baguette, which consisted of black forest ham, chicken, emmenthal (type of cheese), and a dijon mustard sauce for dipping. The chicken was wrapped inside the ham, which was slightly grilled making some parts of the ham crispy and delicious. We both agreed that the dijon mustard was very overpowering. It almost tasted like wasabi! There was a generous amount of fries, but they didn’t taste that great and were really oily. He regretted not ordering the soup, because mine was delicious. We both agreed that we are getting soup as a side next time we come here.

Our bill came to $25, which I think was reasonable considering how delicious our baguettes were. The only thing disappointing was the fries but that is easily overlooked when you take into account their other items. Even though there was only one server (the co-owner), she was very attentive and friendly. She also speaks to you in French at times, and has a French accent, which adds to the overall experience of a French bistro. Looking over at other table’s dishes also looked very delicious as well, I would love to try another item on their menu when I come back here!

My friend heard that this place was really good for AYCE hotpot and sushi, and after much speculation and anticipation, the six of us went to try it out for the first time. Prior to our visit, I was obsessively reading my fellow Urbanspoon-er’s (Did I really just do that?) reviews to know what I should be aware of. So thank you, fellow reviewers for giving me the heads up! We came prepared 🙂 I should also mention that I only took pictures of the hot pot items before it got cooked. Also, I only took a picture of each item once, since we ended up ordering multiple rounds of food.

Previous reviews warned us that Toyotomi was a bit confusing to find, especially their parking and entrance. They were correct. They were pretty strict about parking in the right area, and you had to put down your license plate number or risk getting towed. Toyotomi is located on the bottom floor of an office building. I noticed that the lobby of the building smelled really nice, like laundry. When we walked in, we were greeted by an elaborate table of empty alcohol decorations. Whoa!We made reservations for 7:30, since people said that this place gets really busy. It was probably about 1/2 full when we went. Our table was very awkwardly placed. On one side of the table, was booth seating and then there were four other chairs. However, the table was shorter than the booth and the chairs were awkwardly placed, so that the person sitting at end couldn’t really reach the hot pot. They also didn’t have a built in stove like most hot pot places, just the portable ones which I guess makes it more flexible for them, incase customers don’t want hot pot.We were also well aware of their strict food wastage policy, so we ordered very carefully. It kind of became a laughing joke throughout the night since we joked that each mini slice of cucumber wasted, or onion garnish, would cost us $1. The menu above is their AYCE menu. We chose deluxe since people said that’s the best value, because you get sashimi and more hot pot items. You can also get AYCD (drink) which cost an additional $4, but I think everyone at the table had to order it. Sauces, and extra toppings cost $0.5 approximately as well.For an extra $1, you can get two soup bases. We decided on getting the Japanese chili and Japanese bone. The servers were really good at coming by frequently to make sure our soup didn’t run out. Both of the soup bases were really flavourful. The chili one had a mild spiciness to it, while the bone broth was like a standard, lighter broth. Both tasted pretty different from each other.Our first round of meat! We ordered AAA prime rib, sirlon beef, fatty beef, lamb, and lean beef. All of them might not be pictured here, as I mentioned in the intro. All of the meat was really juicy,tender and delicious!Next up, came our other hot pot items served under a bowl of ice. We ordered pork blood, prawns, beef omasum, pork dumplings, and shrimp dumplings. The pork dumplings were disappointing because they tasted exactly like the frozen ones that you buy at TNT. I also didn’t taste or see any shrimp in the “shrimp dumpings”, but just some sort of seaweed and other meat in it instead. Other than the dumplings, the rest of the items in that bowl were tasty.My gosh! Look at all that sashimi! The sashimi made it worth the deluxe for sure. Each piece of salmon and tuna was so thick, sweet, and juicy. They definitely did not skimp out with their sashimi.This next bowl was kind of random. I’ve never seen onion rings, fries, or sausages offered at an Asian AYCE but hey, it was good! We completely devoured this bowl. My friend couldn’t even wait for me to finish the picture before digging in, as you can see from the chopstick. The onion rings and fries were really crispy. The fries reminded us of Costco fries, which are the best! The takoyaki balls were also really delicious, the skin was pretty crispy. The fried chicken was really juicy, crunchy, and seasoned well!Up next were our rolls. We ordered california rolls, and a special house roll. I didn’t try the california roll, but the special house roll was amazing. The shrimp tempura inside was super crispy and juicy. The topping was tuna sashimi, with crunchy flakes and special sauce. We ended up ordering so many more of these after because they were simply delicious!This was the beef sashimi. I don’t eat beef sashimi, but David said that the beef was extremely tender and they ordered many more rounds of this. It also came with a ponzu sauce which complimented the beef perfectly.Behold! The spicy salmon and tuna sashimi. I honestly wasn’t expecting it to be this delicious, especially for AYCE. The spicy sauce had a mild sweetness to it. The sashimi was also really thick, like the non-spicy sashimi. It came with a crunchy topping mixed inside which I loved, it gave the sashimi a good crunch. The onions on top were also a tasty garnish.This was our seaweed salad. Nothing too special about it. It came in a really, really small bowl (think soya sauce sized) and with a small quantity. It was pretty crunchy and flavourful, but I wouldn’t order it again just because their other dishes are so much better.After ordering many rounds of each dish I mentioned, we were ready for dessert. Again, I’ve never seen frozen pineapples offered as a snack/dessert before so I was intrigued. The pineapples came rock-frozen, but eventually melted so that only the inside was frozen. This was a great, healthy (non fattening), and light dessert to an overwhelming indulgent and gluttonous meal. The pineapples were very, very sweet, and did not have any freezer burn taste to it. They were the cherries to the top of a fabulous cake!

Overall, we had a really pleasant and worthwhile visit to Toyotomi. Each person ended up paying $25 (not including tips). Since it was our first time, we didn’t know what to expect but I was impressed with their service, and the quality of their food. What stood out the most was their sashimi and the quality of beef. I can’t wait to come back here again! I also can’t believe I’ve never heard of this place until recently!

Bubble Queen is a very popular bubble tea joint in the Lower Mainland. I live approx. 45 minutes away and I would come here just to have their bubble tea. My favourite is their fresh mango bubble tea with chunks of fresh mango on top, but I decided not to get that today because I have plenty of mangoes at home right now. Their fresh mango bubble tea is to die for- it is creamy, sweet, blended perfectly, and on top of that, they add a generous amount of fresh mango chunks on top.Upon walking in, we were really surprised that there were only five other customers here on a Saturday night (This picture above was taken from Yelp). I’ve been here five other times, and the line up is usually out the door.I noticed that they have moved their menu on the wall, they used to have menus that customers pass around. It was easier to read, but there was so much on the menu, making it hard to decide what to get! I imagine that the menu would be hard to read when there are a lot of people, since the line up goes in front of it.More options! If you choose the specialty drinks, you can get free pearls. However, the cost of the speciality drinks are at least $1-2 dollars more expensive, so I’m not sure if you’re actually getting a good deal or not. They also serve bubble waffles or toast boxes as well.Notice all their mangoes in the fridge and shelf? Yummm! I’ve never seen this place so empty before. I also noticed that the floors were really, really sticky and the tables desperately needed to be wiped down. However, if you’re just grabbing takeout, it’s not a problem.I finally decided on getting the passion fruit calpis slush with pearls. I always get their fresh mango slush with mango chunks on top, but I felt like having a change today. The other drink is their coconut slush with pearls. Both drinks came to $10.10.I didn’t really taste the calpis juice in my drink, the passion fruit was very strong. I feel like this would taste better not as a slush, since calpis is usually served just like a juice. I probably won’t order this flavour with calpis again, because it was too sweet for me and I didn’t taste any calpis! The pearls were very warm, but as I mixed my slush with the pearls, they tasted pretty good. They were chewy and sweet!The coconut slush with pearls was so good! It was so creamy, rich, and frothy with a strong coconut taste. I liked how smooth it was. I wish I had ordered this one instead!Also would like to point out their enourmous stack of chocolates for their bubble tea! My gosh. And look at all that Coffeemate… it probably isn’t healthy for you, but it tastes so good! Overall, Bubble Queen has very good bubble tea at a decent price. I predict that as the weather becomes warmer, I will be paying more visits to this joint!

People say it’s hard to mess up ramen because it’s just broth, and noodles but there’s much more to it. The broth should be made from good ingredients and from scratch, or it’s not going to taste good. My visit to Ramen Sanpachi fell short, and I was disappointed with the broth and questioned it’s authenticity.We decided to come here since David’s been here before and he liked it. We found meter parking pretty easily. I was a bit confused because in the picture, it looks like Sanpachi is the smaller restaurant on the left, right? But turns out, the right side is part of the restaurant too… talk about change in style. I thought it was two different restaurants, but when I read the hirigana on Google street view (what basic Japanese I know came in handy, heh), it was the same place! Weird.We were expecting it to be busy since it was Friday evening, but there were only two other tables. When we first came in, I noticed a sign advertising their “Taiwanese beef noodles”… I saw that as a warning sign to its “authenticity” but I decided to overlook it. I also read reviews on Urbanspoon that this place wasn’t authentic, because one of the servers asked if they could speak Chinese to the customer because it was easier. Another person also noted that this place seemed like it tried really hard to be “modern” and had tacky leftover Xmas lights, which I saw. Their decor definitely looked more Taiwanese, like The One or Cattle Cafe in Burnaby. More warning signs.Here is the ramen menu. They have a story on their background, where they started in Japan and expanded internationally. Their miso broth is their specialty, and to this day, only the family knows exactly what is in the broth. A couple of the ramen dishes on the right let you chose the type of soup base you wait (miso, shoyu, shio, yatai, spicy), and come with more cha-shu pork for an extra $3 which I have never seen before at other ramen joints.This is where the semi-disappointment begins. I settled on ordering the shio ramen because I wanted a saltier and rich broth. The first thing I noticed was how clear the broth looked, when I’m used to having creamy, and rich broth with my shio ramen. Although Benkei cheaps out on the pieces of meat they give you, they have their broth made really well and I never realized it until I came here. This broth lacked the creamy richness associated with shio ramen. It was also too salty to be tasty. The redeeming qualities about this ramen was that the ramen noodles were cooked al-dente, and their cha-shu pork was lean and there was more than what we got at Benkei . David joked that I should have gotten the noodles that came with a stick of butter, to make it more creamy and rich.David got the cha shu ramen with miso broth ($13). I was secretly glad he ordered the miso broth since, as I mentioned above, it was their specialty and maybe it’s only the shio broth that was disappointing? His soup tasted better, and wasn’t as salty as mine. It also had more taste. His ramen came with a lot more cha shu, which was lean and well-cut as well unlike the paper thin ones we got at Benkei . If I had known beforehand, I would have ordered the miso broth since it tasted better than mine.

One of the reasons we came here was because we left Benkei Ramen a few weeks ago disappointed and wanting more value. But after coming here, I compared both restaurants and realized that Benkei wasn’t as bad. Benkei’s shio broth was better, but Sanpachi is not stingy when it comes to meat toppings, so take your pick. I have yet to figure out if Sanpachi is authentic or not, because some of the other reviews on Urbanspoon say that the chef is from Japan. After this experience, I think I will just eat at the ramen joints on the West End, at least I know I won’t be disappointed there.